Fantastic Four could be the perfect chance to welcome back lapsed Marvel fans like me
Retro, stylish, and hopefully disconnected, Fantastic Four offers the MCU a course correction
Aux Features Fantastic Four
I tapped out of the MCU after Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. It was all too much: The nonsensical plot, the dim visuals, the unshakeable sense that I was missing whatever that movie was trying to tell me because I didn’t binge every Marvel series. In truth, I watched the first episode of WandaVision and bounced. Black Panther was supposed to be the crème de la crème of the MCU. If they can’t even get these right anymore, what have the others become?
’Tis I, the lapsed Marvel fan, and I’m sure I’m not alone. The Marvel Cinematic Universe, as a franchise, is cold. We could point to the disappointing box office of The Marvels, which, any way you slice it, is dismal. This was the sequel to a movie that made more than a billion dollars. It made less than $200 million. Then there’s the investment in Jonathan Majors, who was to play a Thanos-level villain they would set up over several movies and TV shows. To pull a phrase from a competing and struggling superhero universe, his ouster from the MCU created a crisis on infinite multiverses, particularly the long-awaited team-up Avengers movies, the centerpiece of the whole endeavor. For recovering MCU viewers like myself, the recent turmoil seemingly confirmed my biases. This thing has become too bloated, too confusing, and too samey.
Then, something interesting happened. Earlier today, Marvel released a teaser poster for The Fantastic Four. It is a stylishly retro piece of mid-modern futurism that looks straight out of Disney World’s Tomorrowland, featuring a solid cast of modern stars that audiences have a lot of goodwill toward, plus H.E.R.B.I.E. Is looking at this poster the most fun I’ve had with the MCU since that Shang-Chi bus sequence? Yes. Yes, it is.
The Fantastic Four’s preliminary aesthetic feels like something new for the MCU, especially for fans who have lost track of the multiverses and quantum realms. It offers something many thought impossible: an on-ramp to this bloated and unwieldy universe.
Directed by Matt Shakman, who previously brought Marvel back in time with WandaVision, the movie has a chance to do something few others can: Make a justifiable prequel. Assuming Marvel’s teaser isn’t just a Valentine to people like me who miss turning their brains off for a Marvel adventure once or twice a year, a Silver Age Fantastic Four, set in the 60s and separate from the washed-out aesthetic of Atlanta backlots that poisoned this series, could be the on-ramp we need. This doesn’t even need to be an origin story. Like in Spider-Man: Homecoming, the Fantastic Four could simply already exist in some corner of the MCU that we haven’t seen yet. After all, anyone looking to catch up could always check out the other three Fantastic Four movies or 50 years of comics. Imagine it: a superhero movie connected but not beholden to all that came before, a helpful Rainbow Bridge from the Golden Age of The First Avenger to Iron Man. We don’t need another sequel. We require a reason to come back.
It’s been five years since Avengers: Endgame and 16 years since the MCU began. At this point, Marvel needs to welcome new and lapsed fans, a soft reboot for those who haven’t read every issue. Marvel has stretched itself too thin. It’s clobberin’ time for something a little more solid.
127 Comments
I’m in. I’ve been saying since AoU, “WAEK ME WEN GALACTUS.” Give me Galactus, Doom, and later Secret Wars.
I’d be happy with just a good Dr. Doom.
Kang is one of my favorite villains and I am super disappointed that whole thing fell apart.The FF have been kinda lame for decades now but maybe the 5th time will be the charm?
The best way to adapt F4 would be to set the stage in the first flick, then go FULL Hickman for the next howeverthefuckmany flicks.Seriously, Hickman got it when it came to the F4. Give me the Council of Reeds, give me the Future Foundation, give me Johnny Storm dying thousands of times in Skrull captivity, give me the full-on love letter to the Doom/Richards dynamic, all of it.
Yep I’m all for that kind of crazy shit, that’s why I love the multiverse and Kang.
That seems like a recipe for what’s turning people off with these movies — too much bloat, too much space nonsense, too many MacGuffins, too many characters and too little attention to giving those characters story arcs and distinct personalities.
Difference is that all the things I listed are F4 things, all of which tie back toward reinforcing the fundamental dynamic(s) of the group (story arcs and distinct personalities). It isn’t, “Hey, Captain America and the newest Avengers showed up, next week it’s the X-Men!” It’s using the characters to make their OWN epic.IDK, seems to work for other epic stories, when they aren’t smashed into other properties like toys in a tub.
Most of the people who are seeing these movies a not comic book readers, let alone readers who read comics enough to care about things like the Council of Reeds. These people don’t get any thrill from things that are “F4 things.” A Fantastic 4 movie already has the issue of dealing with four different heroes. Marvel needs to be careful not to turn the movie into Quantumania, where there is so much going on that nothing registers or gets sufficient attention.
Most of the people who are seeing these movies a not comic book readers, let alone readers who read comics enough to care about things like the Council of Reeds. These people don’t get any thrill from things that are “F4 things.” Yeah, can’t agree here. It stands to reason that people going to see a F4 movie aren’t going in cold, and likely would have familiarity with the property. And actual fans of the property definitely care about the Council of Reeds, man. Like…it’s a whole thing. A Fantastic 4 movie already has the issue of dealing with four different heroes. Marvel needs to be careful not to turn the movie into Quantumania, where there is so much going on that nothing registers or gets sufficient attention. I mean, I never said I wanted all of those things in one movie. I said I’d like to see them, eventually, as the property itself is fleshed out.
I hope so, but really it comes down to a CGI-fest. You have a rock guy, so that’s already clunky. A fire guy, so all cgi. Someone who gets stretchy. Sadly an invisible-ish woman seems the least likely to look bad.And sorry, I just don’t see Pascal in the Reed role. But I guess that’s just me.
There’s a version of Loki that’s an alligator, but they can’t figure out any plot tools to recast Kang?
Apparently people didn’t really like the character anyhow.
The Marvels had a singing planet! I don’t understand the hate.
It’s not hate. People just didn’t see it.
We don’t talk about this nearly enough in these spaces. A movie failing is not inherently a sign of hate or boycott or anything like that. It’s just as often, or even usually, apathy. Which doesn’t mean anything qualitative about a film. Audiences can be fickle. If that wasn’t the case we’d never have “cult classics”.
sexism and racism. The movie was far from perfect, but it was fun and one of the better recent Marvel outings.
This site gave it a C. Was that sexism or racism?
Probably both.. Odds are the weirdo thinks that regarding anyone who disagrees with them…
I thought it was decent fun. Far, far better than the boring “Quantumania” and the insipid and annoying “Love and Thunder”.
Oh please. Couldn’t just be a bad movie. Has to be an ism’s fault.Fuck off.
That body-swap training montage in ‘The Marvels’ is some of the most fun I’ve had watching a superhero film in ages. If I have to be in the minority for really enjoying that film, well, so be it.
Yeah, I liked The Marvels. Fucking sue me.
It’s not hate, it’s just a bad movie. Good for you if you liked it, nobody cares.
If only we could extricate the villains from the Fantastic Four, they’re so much better than the team that typically opposes them.
It works when you realize that Reed Richards was only a handful of bad days away from being an F4 villain.
As the Ultimate line eventually got to.
Yep. And Planetary before that. Reed works DAMNED well as a villain.
Ha, right, I hadn’t thought of that while typing. Absolutely loved that aspect of Planetary (and all the other aspects).
He works better as a hero, when they give him to a good writer. Hickman and Byrne’s versions were great.
That was a f*cking abomination. That guy isnt Reed.
Which was bullshit. Its just bad writing from bad, edgy writers who dont know what to do with him.
Can’t agree. I’m not saying it’s inevitable, I’m saying it’s a facet of the character that’s pretty damned human. It’s a mode of connection with the character.Is Reed a genius working toward the betterment of all life? Sure. Can he be a neglectful, pompous ass to his friends and family? Sure. Does he make good calls? Absolutely. Does he make total dogshit calls that blow up in his face (i.e., overthrowing Doom in Latveria, working to shoot the Hulk into space, etc.)? Absolutely.IDK, I feel like we can all relate to that. And a good amount of us can relate to the stress of balancing personal purpose with familial connection.TL;DR: I’m not saying that The Maker is the *best* Reed, but I’m glad he exists as a version of what Reed could have been if he didn’t learn the right lessons and meet the right people along the way. And he could have been WORSE than Doom.
No thanks to that shitty revisionist take on the character
No, they arent. Maybe if you believe the bullshit from the past few years they try to pass off as writing.
If this is actually set in the 60s as its poster seemed to imply, then I’m all for it. Matt Shakman did a wonderful job in WandaVision at bringing all of those eras to life, and most of the movie set in the 60s with maybe a jump to our current time at the end or something to inevitably join up with the rest of the 1000 superheroes seems sensible.
It worked for Captains America and Marvel!
I’m hoping against hope that they forgo making it yet another movie-long origin story. Get it out of the way in the first 10 minutes or, hell, just give audiences a promotional mini comic book with a crash course on the team’s origin to thumb through while they wait for the movie to start. Have the film itself start in medias res with some big battle between all the other MCU characters they want to shoehorn in going at it, and have the FF pop out of the sky, midair, having just escaped from the Negative Zone where they’ve been trapped—powers and all—facing down Annihilus and his minions while the rest of the MCU unfolded for the past 15 years. Have them help the other heroes save the day in a quick 5 minute montage, say their goodbyes and leave the other heroes behind, and then let them go off to face off one or more of their rogues gallery on their own: Doom, Galactus, Puppet Master, Mole Man, the Frightful Four, Impossible Man, Mephisto…
Molecule Man ftw!
Molecule Man would be amazing. What I’d really like to see is them set it up where the FF were around and got their powers in the 60s where they were fighting that whole group of villains that popped up in early issues like MM—just lean into how campy they all are—and then have the FF pop up in modern times having been trapped in the Negative Zone for how many ever years.
I. Want. Hickman’s. Secret Wars. MOLECULE MAN(S) BOMB(S) FTW!
That would be good with me.
i keep waiting for them to do an Annihilation movie that launches in media res like the comic. like pretty much the first page is Star-Lord narrating mid-battle after the whole roster of Galactic Marvel has teamed up “off-screen”.
I’m on board for all of this *except* the mini comic idea. If your story requires you to consult outside media it has failed. I’m fine with *enhancing* a film with tie-ins but don’t make it a requirement.
I was thinking of those little comic books that came packaged with Masters of the Universe action figures that introduced the characters. Atari did something similar with some of the early 2600 cartridges; a little comic book would give you the game’s backstory so you could better imagine what the primitive graphics were supposed to represent. Anyway, I just want to avoid yet another origin story. Ain’t gonna happen, but I can dream.
I also think Marvel has to avoid the problem of using the entire movie as a tool to promote a future, more desirable movie. This has mainly been a DC problem, where we get, say, Steppenwolf, as the Justice League villain with the hope that that will make us more likely to see a future movie that doesn’t exist, and now never will. But you see some of the same problem emerging with Kang and Quantumania. If you think Kang is a great villain, then maybe don’t give us inferior, incomplete Kang stories, with the hope that it will make us pumped for a movie set to come out in 2027. Giving us bad movies doesn’t tend to make us want to see more movies, and sometimes life (or assault convictions) blow up distant plans.The risk with Fantastic 4 is the team has primary villain that people recognize. It’s fine if this movie doesn’t feature Dr. Doom. But that should be because another villain actually fits better with the story Marvel thinks is most compelling, not because Marvel is worried that will ruin their plan for a Dr. Doom movie set to come out just before the heat death of the universe.
Fantastic Four? Nah, I want the Fantastic Faux, which is a wildly entertaining series that deserved to be made in to a film.
To be fair to the makers, there are lots of good non-Doctor Doom villains that FF could fight.Wizard (and/or) The Frightful Four; Molecule Man; Mole Man; Red Ghost and his apes; Diablo; Puppet Master, Rama Tut, Dragon Man and this idiot.Heck they could even redo the Inhumans and make them interesting, then give us Maximus the Mad.
Not retreading the origin stories is fine by me, but as a casual non-comic book expert who just happened to get drawn into the MCU via the films, that opening battle sequence featuring dozens of shoehorned-in characters that have nothing to do with the film’s plot is as much a turn off as any of the other gratuitous cameos and bloated runtimes that drove me away from Phase 4 in the first place. Please can we just have a movie that’s about the actual characters the story is about? Just hearing the description is exhausting. Drop a cameo in the post-credits if you must. That’s what it’s there for.
I also am not a fan of reading a mini-comic to catch me up so I understand the movie. That’s way too much homework for light escapist entertainment. Everything I need to understand and enjoy the film should be contained within the film itself.
The comic-book-reading kid in me – who started with FF stories in the early 70s – would be thrilled if Annihilus and the Negative Zone were at least referenced in this. That would be HUGE.
The Fantastic Four have a great rogues gallery, but I can’t help but hope the villain is Magneto. He’s a legendary villain, the fans love him, and he was the antagonist in a foundational FF comic where he’s defeated through cleverness. If you’re going to do an FF movie you might as well have them outwit the villain rather than out-punch or out-superpower them.
Wakanda Forever’s plot was nonsensical because they chose to keep many of the big action sequences they’d done pre-production for, but rewrite the film so other characters were participating, since they couldn’t use Black Panther.
“the unshakeable sense that I was missing whatever that movie was trying to tell me because I didn’t binge every Marvel series”
For this opportunity to engage in hyperbole, you unfortunately picked a movie with absolutely zero need to have seen any of the series whatsoever, and only one crossover element from any of them (which had no consequence for the plot in any way).If you didn’t like the plot, fine, that’s perfectly valid, but this particular statement was a completely made-up way to express that.
Yeah that’s pretty much the case any time someone complains about having to watch the shows to understand the movies. Man if you can’t understand what’s going on in a Marvel superhero flick then you are not paying attention…or you’re watching Eternals, that’s a possibility also.
Its kind of true for The Marvels-yeah, you could figure it out the plot easy enough, but why would you care about Ms Marvel or Monica if you hadnt seen Wandavision or Ms Marvel?
Because Monica was in the *first* Captain Marvel & Kamala is a bundle of joy.
I don’t understand why you’d care about Carol, she’s really boring and her movie wasn’t that great. I would have rather watched Monica from the start, personally. So I didn’t see either of them in the theater, that’s a perfectly valid choice.
I guess i just like brie larson-i think shes underrated in those movies, but yeah it could be better.
I think she does fine with the material, it’s just that the material is kind of boring. ‘Super serious pilot woman get super powers, brainwashed to be a super serious alien super soldier, remembers truth, fights back.’ is just kind of bland compared to basically every other hero.
And every time I read this variety of retort I have the same response. Just about EVERY narrative film can be understood on a basic level. *Of course* Marvel films can be followed. But to get the *most* *intended* narrative value out of them there IS an expectation that you’ve consumed all the other shit. OF COURSE I can understand that a red-eyed lady with veiny bluish skin baring her teeth is a Bad Guy. But who is she in relation to everyone else, why does she want to murder/dominate them, what’s the McGuffin she keeps throwing out, etc is too often a matter of “Watch the TV show to get the bigger picture.”
OF COURSE I can understand that a red-eyed lady with veiny bluish skin baring her teeth is a Bad Guy. But who is she in relation to everyone else, why does she want to murder/dominate them, what’s the McGuffin she keeps throwing out, etc is too often a matter of “Watch the TV show to get the bigger picture.” Yep. This. And there’s a difference between relaying that bigger picture in a satisfying way, and perfunctorily nodding at it.Is watching WandaVision strictly mandatory? No. Does it provide a good amount of backstory for Multiverse of Madness that the film does not address terribly well within its runtime? Fuck yes, and I don’t get why some folks like to pretend otherwise.
Yup. Like, I’m not an idiot, but I’d like to know a villain’s motivation without 8+ hours of investment in a TV show that may not even be good
And in the case of MoM/WandaVision in particular it didn’t even fucking matter because any character arc Wanda earned in the show was demolished by the movie. The show ends with her coming to a self-realization and accepting her grief. She does take the Darkhold, which does *hint* at a possible corruption, but the movie makes her out to be trying to bring her children into existence. But the whole fucking dramatic resolution of the TV show was her acceptance of the fact that those children *weren’t real*. So the show says “Wanda accepts her grief” and the movie says “Nah, nevermind, she cray-cray.” Ridiculous. Among many exceedingly shitty writing decisions made in that terrible script.
I didn’t take that away.I don’t mean to protest *your* takeaway, but I felt the movie made it clear the Darkhold is both prescient and seductive, and it used Wanda’s grief to seduce her.Just as an aside, grief doesn’t. really ever leave a person. One can certainly accept it and move on, but given the chance at actual alleviation, most anyone would snap. I don’t find the character arc to be particularly dishonest.Flick wasn’t great by a long shot but as Marvel Studios goes (especially lately) it could be a lot worse.
But the show already dealt with that. What was the point of having Wanda go through the events in the show only for her next on-screen appearance to go completely against where she was by the end? If Marvel wanted that to be Wanda’s trajectory we should have had a second season of WandaVision to demonstrate the Darkhold corruption. Or an interim episode at least.I’m aware of how grief works in real life. But these are narratives, NOT real life. My complaint about this sort of thing tends to favor consistency. I’m fine if a storyteller wants to traffic in realism. If you don’t think people change, don’t have your character change. If IRL grief is not able to be “overcome”, don’t have your character overcome it. Just be *consistent*. Very tangentially but the same basic problem, I absolutely HATED what would happen between seasons of The L Word for this very reason. One of the main characters, Shane, would go through this heartbreaking process every season of figuring herself out only for the *very next season* to show up in the season premiere totally fucked up again. It made ZERO sense. Don’t have a character come to self-realization or approach self-actualization if you’re just gonna throw it out for the sake of drama the very next time we see them!And even IF we accept that Wanda’s characterization in MoM was the result of how grief works IRL, the movie itself is far too concerned with a bunch of tangential bullshit to spend the time Wanda deserved. They turned her into a cheap, easy witchy villain whose motivation we *already dealt with*.
Yeah.All valid points. The arc was nothing if not rushed. But I don’t feel like Wanda doubling back on her grief was inconsistent or frankly out of character. As they left her (spoiler) demise open I hope they continue the arc, provided the MCU doesn’t crash and burn as it shows all indications of doing.The whiplash complaint is certainly something I can get behind. It was one of the issues with the movie (though far from the biggest). Still, I don’t see it as anything more than that. Thematically resonant but rushed in a film that was trying to do too much. Wanda *would* have done that, maybe not so fast though.Raimi saved it IMO. Took it from D range to C range with some cool Raimi tricks.
Except that the very last scene of Wandavision explicitly showed her realizing that the children were real somewhere else.
Or you could, you know, google it if you don’t want to spend time to watch the show. The excuse is suuuuper thin.
It’s not a super thin excuse. The point is not how easily you CAN access the information necessary to make a story element make sense. The point is that you shouldn’t HAVE to. A narrative should be self-contained enough that outside research is UNNECESSARY. This is not just a criticism of MCU shit, this is relevant to any conversation about sequels and franchises. Certainly there is an expectation in any sequel that the viewer has seen the prior film. This is one of the most common and most reasonable criticisms of sequels. The good ones are able to get over that hump and function as a *reasonably* self-contained narrative.If you want to talk about “suuuuuper thin” excuses, pretending that a story that needs Googling is somehow okay is super fucking thin. Maybe you’re okay with bad storytelling if the story entertains you. I’m not.
“A narrative should be self-contained enough that outside research is UNNECESSARY.”You already agreed that outside research is unnecessary to make the story elements make sense. Outside research is unnecessary.
Were you making the same complaint about the Avengers movies? Or Civil War? This is absolutely no different, it’s just the material that gives you a deeper understanding may be contained in a TV show rather than a movie now.
“If you want to talk about “suuuuuper thin” excuses, pretending that a
story that needs Googling is somehow okay is super fucking thin.”We had agreed before that the stories are, by and large, perfectly understandable without any exterior information. The excuse that you can’t be assed to google for more info if you want a deeper understanding in the year 2024 is, indeed, ‘suuuuper thin’.
It’s not even a recent development, though it’s of course getting worse. There was shit in the original Avengers about Phil Coulson that’s odd if you’ve never seen Agents of Shield, and that was way back in the dark days of 2012, when you could still mention Joss Whedon’s name in polite company.
MCU is nerdbait. Nerds love complex systems they can learn – the more complex, the more knowledge they get to learn, and they love the validation they feel when that learning is rewarded with nods and winks to the good boys who’ve done the homework and extra reading – especially if they have a chance to show off to people who don’t get the reference.What they can’t understand is that normal people absolutely hate this shit. It’s one of the reasons why MCU is dying off – it’s too big, to bloated, to complex, and regular people who don’t maintain fan wikis and hang out on TV Tropes and keep mental spreadsheets of which episode of Wandavision had that vase in the background of that one shot that Spider Man later pointedly goes out of his way to smash in Avengers 5: Part III: Subsection C for people to follow. So for nerds, they feel that the MCU is getting even better. But given that they…ain’t the best at relating to people who ain’t exactly like them, they can’t understand that other people are switching off while it’s getting “better”…and they need these normals around to to lord their superior superhero knowledge over.
I’m not sure it’s quite a matter of understanding the movies. It’s a question of whether it’s realistic to expect us to be excited about the 4th most important character in WandaVision appearing in a movie.
And links to a review with a “B” grade. Not glowing by any means, but doesn’t support the argument that the movie had a “nonsensical plot” and “dim visuals” very well.
Wakanda Forever did not have the problem of expecting knowledge of previous Marvel properties. It did have the corresponding problem, however — elements shoehorned into the movie to set up the next Marvel properties. Riri Williams served no purpose in the movie, but she was in there anyway in the hope that it would generate hype for Iron Heart.There’s an emotionally gripping story at the core of Wakanda Forever, one that helpfully parallels the audience’s feelings about the movie itself and Chadwick Boseman’s death. It would be nice if we didn’t constantly step away from that story so we could focus on a character no one cares about in a movie that’s already overlong.
The problem is that you can only know how self contained a movie is by seeing the other movies that it doesn’t reference. It doesn’t help that the movies are indifferently plotted and way too long.
It’s a problem he tricked himself into thinking he had, and unfortunately it was the worst possible example he could have used.
You can’t walk into one of these movies expecting it to be a standalone story. That’s the whole marketing hook for the series. It’s why watching the second Spider-Man movie required me to Google the fourth Avengers movie. But it’s also true that the movies are pretty simplistic, and the characters explain the story repeatedly (like in Paw Patrol). So the writer clearly got into his head. Or he’s seven.
Yeah, that bad-faith nonsense in the first paragraph led me to write off the entire article.
I check out most of the Marvel movies. Spending 15 bucks & a few hours of my time – no big deal. If it’s good – great. If it’s bad, oh well – it’s a comic movie. Got a feeling this one will be good. Hoping some of the Roger Corman FF folks make cameos 🙂
Hoping some of the Roger Corman FF folks make cameos 🙂 That would be cool, and is a genuine possibility I think. We got a Garrett Morris cameo in Ant-Man. [Those that don’t know – he was the first Ant-Man! with “the strength of a … human..”. Yeah, on an SNL skit, but it counts.]
Brad Bird really should be directing this. If they can go with a similar vibe to the Incredibles there’s a good chance will knock it out of the park.
And hopefully, with Pascal playing Reed, they will TOTALLY forget all the recent bullshit in the comic that says “hey, maybe Reed’s really a creep?” It’s edgy bullshit from bad writers who didnt know how to write him. And thats the way pop culture is now, nobody can just be a good guy anymore, there always has to be a dark side, or some kind of edge, or some kind of revisionism to that effect. Really suprised Cap escaped that, but part of thats because Chris Evans is such a great actor in that role.
I think the fact that Professor Impossible is such a spot-on parody of Reed’s less great qualities demonstrates that your overly rosey impression of the character is maybe no more sensible than the “edgy” one about which you’re whining.
Fucking bang on. Apparently a pitch-perfect parody as well (“Reed thinks he can solve every family problem with a new ray gun”). Plus, he also had a great arc, dropping to down (or up) to Villain status.
I loved that even as a supervillain he was such a nonstop dork.
One of the many reasons I love Venture Bros. is that level of grounding. For example, a super-duper Benton Quest type, who has the backing of the US government and blessing of the president himself and millions of dollars and genius to fight crime and is super handsome and famous isn’t going to be a noble paragon of nobility. He’s gonna be a massive dick.
Noone is whining. Noone can comment or complain about ANYTHING online anymore without someone accusing them of “whining”, or “butthurt”, or some variation on that. Its dumb, stop it.
Sure, as soon as you stop weirdly white knighting for Reed Richards.(See what I did there?)
yes, you did exactly what i said you were doing. stop being stupid.
Stop being a needlessly antagonistic, deeply weird martyr for a children’s fictional character.
Youre the one being weird, your responses are getting increasingly hyperbolic and hostile. You seem to have some deep seated hatred for richards-like you pointed out, hes a fictional character, get over it.
Buddy, read your own posts. You’re unhinged.
Really surprised Cap escaped that, but part of that’s because Chris Evans is such a great actor in that role. Well, he did get to say “Hail Hydra” to Jasper Sitwell. That’s sort of showing a dark side. With a nice little smirk as he walked out away with Loki’s scepter, and with no need for another elevator fight…
If you haven’t been reading lately, Ryan North’s Reed is darn near perfection. Please give me that instead of the war criminal waiting to happen.
I havent seen it, they turned him into a good guy again? Thats good.
Yep. He’s back to being an easygoing loving-patriarch type of goober. The whole run thus far is largely a return to “explorers looking into weird stuff” and is all the better for it
WandaVision was stellar, easily the most interesting thing the MCU has done. Shankman earns a lot of good faith from that.
Yup. It was so good that nearly everything after felt kind of pointless. I dropped off shortly thereafter. Loki was good, Guardians 3 had moments, but everything else just felt unnecessary and wasteful
Hawkeye was good too. So was Werewolf by Night.
Yeah, especially if he had the idea that the hero and villain should spend the last episode flying around throwing light at each other. Innovative stuff.
The only question is what same-power villian(s) will they fight?There’s Super Skrull that has all of their powers, right? I guess that’s about the only option unless they make another team of four with similar abilities.I know they’ve basically been doing it from day one, but I checked out of Wakanda Forever when they revealed Namor’s backstory involving powers given by a fruit / herb… At this point it’s just an unhealthy compulsion.
It’s not a question, it’s already confirmed to be Galactus, with Doom to be introduced at the end/post credits.
Eh, we’ll see what horsebrain opinion coming out of right wing twitter chudsphere ends up dominating the discourse in a few months. Will it be “I’m not racist but Pedro Pascal” or “Vanessa Kirby age gap!” or “Human Torch pre-MCU workout regimen not as hot as previous Human Torch post-training regimen” or “Movie includes Marvel characters therefore I am legally obligated to watch all of She-Hulk to understand this, I cannot possibly comprehend the concept of superhero otherwise”? You decide, you’ll be the journo at the time.
Time to touch some grass, kiddo…
Hey, horses are smarter than that!
I don’t know why Fantastic 4 has such a big nostalgia following. I grew up in the 80s and 90s and while the comics ran, I didn’t know anyone who bought them or read them. They didn’t have a cartoon show and didn’t get movies until the 2000s, so I only knew of them when they crossed over with X-Men or something and Marvel took for granted that you knew them and were really excited to see them. I’ve probably seen more parodies of them than actual FF content at that point. They do nothing for me.
They absolutely had cartoons. One in the late 60s and another in the 90s.
Yeah, I’ve had almost zero interest in super heroes throughout my life, and even I remember that there was a Fantastic Four cartoon.
They didn’t have a cartoon show and didn’t get movies until the 2000s
they had a cartoon in the 60s, 70s, and also in the 90s. There was also whatever the fuck was going on with that 90s F4 film, even if it was never officially released.That said, outside of the Thing, I mostly see Fantastic Four as a bigger deal among comic nerds than the general public.
I do not remember the FF cartoon show. It may have just aired at a weird time or not run for very long. But I would watch every episode of X-Men and never quite figure out that they were being run out of order.
The FF cartoon in the 90s didn’t last for very long and was easy to miss. I only knew it existed because I found a DVD of it later. No idea where it aired. The 60s and 70s cartoon were before my time and must not have been sold to syndication like Super Friends or the 60’s Spider-Man cartoon (which come to think of it, I never saw when I was a kid; I was just aware of it because of references to the theme song). I bring it up because before and during the early days of the internet, it felt so weird to stumble upon certain comic-related shows and movies. And today, everything more or less feels immortalized by social media and blogs. People still discover things from before their time, but I don’t think it’s anything like what it felt like to find a dusty magazine with a picture of Helen Slater as Supergirl in a movie you had no idea existed with absolutely zero context and no easy way to find out more.I’m with you though. I won’t deny that the FF has fans, but outside of hardcore comic and geek circles, I don’t know anyone clamoring for another Fantastic Four movie, and they don’t do anything for me either. I’ve seen people argue that the success of The Incredibles prove that a FF movie done right would be a hit, ignoring the possibility that The Incredibles may have already stolen some of FF’s thunder.
There was also whatever the fuck was going on with that 90s F4 film, even if it was never officially released. That was a deliberately super-cheap movie made just to keep the film rights from reverting back to Marvel. It was never meant to be released.
That was my impression, though there’s apparently some disputes on that (but my guess is that never releasing it was the ultimate plan regardless of whatever contracts Marvel had).
I can only speak for myself, but Hickman’s FF run (which led into his Avengers run and eventually Secret Wars, which was itself an FF story masquerading as an event book) really solidified my love of comics in early college.I’ll always have a soft spot for an FF story and I’m pretty stoked for this despite not reading anywhere near as much FF over the years as I have Avengers.
As a kid I read FF before Spiderman…they were a pretty big deal. (But I’m older.)
There’s been nearly three dozen movies and this franchise has grossed almost 30 billion dollars this thing has become oversaturated to the point of being ridiculous but these articles talk about the MCU like it’s an underdog and not something that’s completely taken over the film industry. It’s the Walmart of the film industry. At this point superhero fans are displaying cult behavior.
that’s completely taken over the film industryActually, their are hundreds of films released each year. Most of them are not Marvel films, as shocking as that might sound.
I feel bad for the pearls you’re clutching…
If the first episode of (the nearly flawless) WV series made you bounce . . . this FF may not be the lifeboat you’re hoping for.
As a patriotic Latverian, I detest everything about this.
yeah, sure, but this is a CURSE PROJECT! This will make as the Fourth Time adapting the characters, and one of them was sent to the negatize zone. Of course Marvel comics can’t survive without Fantastic Four, and the films look silly without Reed Richards exposition and creating a deus ex machina device out of nowhere. Seriously, Infinity War lacked looking at the Fantastic Four monitor and seeing all the missing heroes shot even on par with Marvel VS Capcom style. and at the same time, EVERYONE GOT THE POINT WHEN INCREDIBLES CAME OUT IN 2004! And now, it’s Rick Scanchez that everyone already got the point again! So not only is it cursed, everyone is cribbing off them better and better and better.
set it in media res. Go on a full adventure and not half gaining-their-powers, half adventure. The Trank movie messed things up severely with the imbalance.
Counterpoint: 3 previous films have proven that no one but hardcore comic book nerds gives a flying fuck about the fantastic 4. I hope this flops hard and finally kills comic book movies forever.
I’d love to Rick Remender contribute to story or screenwriting on this. His Black Science series over at image was a pretty amazing take on a FF-like team, run by a guy who was well-meaning, but wound up creating massive problems for his family and reality (probably don’t need BS’ multiverse plotline given Marvel’s recent woes with that topic). Plus, his take on outlandish science being pursued and experienced by eccentric scientists was super-fun, and better than the average FF storyline.
Separate thought: I think this article, the site, and media criticism has conflated the zeitgeist and relative franchise quality. Even in the MCU’s heyday there were middling entries. Everybody can fight about which films were good and which weren’t, and Disney certainly helped push the MCU out of the zeitgeist with overproduction of content. But I feel like the movie-going public is a little over superhero movies. Genres come and go in cycles, and thinking that superhero/comics movies are immune to that seems flawed thinking. Disney and Warner definitely want believe to believe that. Unfortunately, some media critics seem to have internalized that, and have mistakenly connected misfires as being responsible for the cratering of the genre. As other posters pointed out – it’s not that people hate a given movie; they aren’t going to see it. I think the best thing that Disney can do is let entries breathe (same for Star Wars), as absence makes the heart grow fonder. To that last point. Disney: we don’t need a Mandalorian and Grogu movie, and if you made people wait until 2027 for another tentpole SW movie, I think you’d get many more buts in seats and get a way better RoI than if you hurried to make it now. Spend that time working with really fantastic screenwriters to come up with something special, and start rewarding patient audiences, instead of exhausting us. There’s always your streaming channels to pump out run-rate content and keep die-hards engaged.
Given how there have been three Fantastic Four flicks, all terrible, all box office bombs, I wouldn’t hold my breath for how well this version turns out.
The were not all box office bombs. The 2005 film made more than triple it’s budget, which was enough to greenlight a sequel. Said sequel was closer to break-even than to a “bomb”. Only the 2015 movie was really a bomb.
Imagine if Marvel had just pushed pause after Endgame released and didn’t touch the MCU for five years, and then launched phase 4 with a “new avengers” film (bring back a few legacy heroes and then kill them in the movie, but, like, “permanently”, so you have to stay away from the multiverse), and *then* started in on solo movies and TV shows exploring the characters making up the New Avengers. That sounds fun! I’m here for that! Hell, they could have put some of the XMen on the new Avengers team since the rights issue would have been resolved for it.Oh, also, idgaf about the Fantastic 4 (I strongly dislike all four characters in basically every iteration I’ve seen them in – movies, games and TV shows), and disconnecting it from the larger MCU story lines won’t inspire me to see it more. And the fact that every standalone F4 movie has bombed critically, commercially, or both, makes me feel like I’m not alone and doesn’t make me think people will show up for this one if it is disconnected.Time will prove me right (though, hopefully, wrong!) Disney can only release so many projects in a row they lose money on before they start adopting the Warner Bros. approach of killing movies before release for tax write-offs.That’s the future of the MCU.
just aim for a simple science adventure flick. Can they do that? Keep Doom as originally written. No need to embellish. I think previous films tried to do too much reinvention. Wouldn’t it be great if Galactus was a space cloud? No. No, it wouldn’t.